Warning: Invalid argument supplied for foreach() in /media/www/hollywood/Web/releases/20150325105258/vendor/doctrine/common/lib/Doctrine/Common/Annotations/FileCacheReader.php on line 202
Warning: Invalid argument supplied for foreach() in /media/www/hollywood/Web/releases/20150325105258/vendor/doctrine/common/lib/Doctrine/Common/Annotations/FileCacheReader.php on line 202
Warning: Invalid argument supplied for foreach() in /media/www/hollywood/Web/releases/20150325105258/vendor/doctrine/common/lib/Doctrine/Common/Annotations/FileCacheReader.php on line 202
Marlon Brando's second wife Movita Castaneda dies

By:
WENN.com
Feb 17, 2015

Marlon Brando's ex-wife Movita Castaneda has died at the age of 98. The Mexican-American actress passed away on Thursday (12Feb15) at a rehabilitation centre in Los Angeles, where she was recovering from a neck injury, reports the Los Angeles Times.
Castaneda rose to prominence in 1933's Flying Down to Rio, Fred Astaire's first film with Ginger Rogers, and went on to land roles as sexy, exotic characters opposite Clark Gable in Mutiny on the Bounty, John Carroll in Rose of the Rio Grande and Wolf Call, and Warren Hull in Girl from Rio.
Castaneda's other film credits included Paradise Isle, Fort Apache and Captain Calamity, and TV series Knots Landing in the late 1980s.
She met Brando in the late 1950s and became his second wife in 1960 - but their romance ended in divorce after the movie icon left the actress for 19-year-old Tarita Teri'ipaia, who ironically played his onscreen lover in a remake of Castaneda's Flying Down to Rio in 1962.
Teri'ipaia became Brando's third wife.
Castaneda, who was previously married to Irish boxer-turned-singer and actor Jack Doyle, is survived by her two children with Brando - Miko and Rebecca.

2015 is going to be a big year for movies, and we're super excited. There are dozens of films that we can't wait to see: long-awaited sequels, novel adaptations, oh and a little movie called Star Wars: The Force Awakens. These are some of the blockbusters that are heading to a theater near you in 2015.
1. 50 Shades of Grey (February 13)
GIPHY
The sexy novel comes to the big screen just in time for Valentine's Day.
2. Cinderella (March 13)
GIPHY
3. The Divergent Series: Insurgent (March 20)
troublefindsme.tumblr.com
4. Furious 7 (April 3)
maybehonestly.tumblr.com
The last Fast and Furious movie to star the late Paul Walker.
5. Avengers: Age of Ultron (May 1)
marvelmovies.tumblr.com
The superhero team assembles once again to take on a sentient robot threat.
6. Pitch Perfect 2 (May 15)
annacinderellas.tumblr.com
The Bellas are back for an aca-sequel!
7. Mad Max: Fury Road (May 15)
kinghardy.tumblr.com
8. Tomorrowland (May 22)
GIPHY
9. Paper Towns (June 5)
The closest I've come to getting a picture of Ben. Love these guys. #PaperTowns http://t.co/QjLY96DqiJ pic.twitter.com/hBso48e2K9
— John Green (@johngreen) December 17, 2014
The second book by author John Green to be made into a film, after the success of last summer's The Fault in Our Stars.
10. Jurassic World (June 12)
iamnevertheone.tumblr.com
11. Inside Out (June 19)
GIPHY
The newest Pixar film takes place in the mind of a young girl.
12. Terminator Genisys (July 1)
voldemorte.tumblr.com
13. Magic Mike XXL (July 1)
GIPHY
We're so happy that we're getting more of this.
14. Ant-Man (July 17)
thorinoakeshield.tumblr.com
15. The Maze Runner: Scorch Trials (September 18)
mazerun.co
16. Spectre (November 6)
GIPHY
James Bond (Daniel Craig) returns to kick some more ass.
17. The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2 (November 20)
gifthg.tumblr.com
18. Star Wars: The Force Awakens (December 18)
19. Sisters (December 18)
GIPHY
Tina Fey and Amy Poehler starring in a movie together makes it an automatic must-see.
20. The Hateful Eight (December 25)
H8ful Eight rehearsal! This shit is too much fun! Gonna be a BLAST!! http://t.co/VuRFpbABFs
— Samuel L. Jackson (@SamuelLJackson) November 23, 2014
The latest film from Quentin Tarantino. Expect a lot of violence.
It looks like we'll be spending a lot of time at the movies next year.
Follow @hollywood_com
//
Follow @mary_oates
//

Splash News
Sir Paul McCartney helped a fan propose to his longtime girlfriend as he returned to the stage in New York over the weekend (05-06Jul14).
The Beatles legend, who took two months out from his world tour to recuperate from a viral infection in May (14), had double the reason to smile as he resumed his trek in Albany on Saturday (05Jul14), after spotting a pair of fans holding up signs which read, "He won't marry me 'til he meets you" and "I've got the ring and I'm 64."
McCartney invited the devotees, identified as John Dann and Claudia Rogers, up on stage and serenaded them, while Dann proposed to his partner.

Everett Collection
Some pairs are just meant to be onscreen together, whether its Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers or Bud Abbott and Lou Costello. They have a connection and chemistry that is hard to quantify and even harder to manufacture. As far as today's stars go, Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly have proved that they have that kind of connection when they're working together. So have Seth Rogen and James Franco. With each duo in the early stages of new big screen projects, we ask fans: Which of the bro-tastic pairings are you most looking forward to see reunited?
Ferrell and Reilly
It's not exactly the most logical fit. Ferrell comes from the Saturday Night Live school of goofy man-child characters and Reilly was once considered an up-and-coming dramatic actor working with directors like Martin Scorsese, Paul Thomas Anderson, and Terrence Malick. Then Reilly became Ferrell's dimwitted sidekick in Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby and soon the two were doing red carpet bits in character. They reteamed for Step Brothers, a film that gave new meaning to the term "arrested development" and established Ferrell and Reilly as a powerhouse comedy duo. Since then they've appeared in Funny or Die shorts together and Reilly made a cameo in last year's Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues. They each continue to do a full slate of work on their own — Reilly in particular stays extremely busy — making it clear that when they work together it's because they want to. The pair is set to reteam with director Adam McKay, Ferrell's frequent collaborator and Step Brothers director, on a comedy called Border Guards about two guys that end up on the wrong side of the Mexican border while trying to protect the United States from illegal immigrants.
Rogen and Franco
As opposed to Ferrell and Reilly, who had plenty of success individually prior to working together, Rogen and Franco started out working with one another in Judd Apatow's critically TV cult classic Freaks and Geeks. The pair shared screentime and exemplary chemistry with Jason Segel, Busy Philipps, and Linda Cardellini as the titular "freaks." While Franco went off and found stardom in the Tobey Maguire Spider-Man movies, Rogen hung around with Apatow long enough to find a fan base of his own after films like The 40-Year-Old Virgin and Knocked Up. Around the same time that Ferrell and Reilly did Step Brothers, Franco and Rogen reteamed for Pineapple Express. Then there was last year's This Is the End, where Rogen and Franco played amplified versions of themselves. Since then, they've taken to the net to spoof Kanye West's "Bound 2" video as well as Vogue's photo shoot with Kim Kardashian, and Franco popped in on Rogen's recent hosting turn on Saturday Night Live. The affection that they have for each other shows… sometimes more than you could even expect, such as the over-the-top (and shirtless) displays of love in the Bound video. Rogen and Franco, through their production companies, are planning to produce a film version of the book The Disaster Artist about the making of the notoriously bad cult movie The Room.
Perhaps someday Ferrell, Reilly, Franco and Rogen will all make a movie together — and considering Ferrell's and Rogen's proclivity for cramming famous people into their projects that isn't too far-fetched — but for now we're making you choose. So, who's it going to be? Vote below to tell us which duo — Ferrell and Reilly or Franco and Rogen — you can't wait to see more comedy gold from.
Follow @Hollywood_com
//
Follow @LifeAsSitcom
//

Comedy Central
The brouhaha that erupted over Stephen Colbert being named as successor to David Letterman's chair as host of CBS' The Late Show once again shined a light on the ongoing battle for the hearts and minds of the American public that is still raging between comedians and conservative pundits.
When news broke of Colbert's new role — providing him with potentially a much larger audience than his Comedy Central show The Colbert Report — right-wing commentators, especially Bill O'Reilly and Rush Limbaugh went on the offensive, decrying CBS' choice as the potential undoing of America.
It was just the latest volley in the feuds that have been going on for years… or at least since Jon Stewart took over The Daily Show in 1999. When the Hollywood Reporter released its list of the 35 Most Powerful People in New York Media, the list included a healthy dose of both conservative commentators (O'Reilly, Fox News' Megyn Kelly, Sean Hannity) and comedians (Stewart, Colbert, Jimmy Fallon).
It used to be that comedians made fun of politicians and the political types would just ignore it. That was in the days before cable gave comedians significantly more leeway to discuss politics than Johnny Carson could've ever imagined. To counter what they viewed as liberal bias, conservatives developed their own media stars to keep politicians from having to get dirty. So, who's winning the battle?
The Pundits
O'Reilly seems to by turns enjoy his tete-a-tetes with Stewart and to be infuriated by the platform that Comedy Central has given Stewart and Colbert to promote a "liberal agenda." Where he seems to have fun with Stewart, that playfulness doesn't always extend to Colbert, who based his character and show largely on O'Reilly. "Colbert has built an entire career on pleasing the left," O'Reilly said on his show. "It'll be hard to fathom that 40% of Americans who describe themselves as conservative will watch Colbert."
O'Reilly isn't alone in his view that comedians are undermining the message that conservative policymakers are trying to deliver. Conservative commentator Ann Coulter has long sparred with Bill Maher over the views that he expresses on his HBO show. Coulter, whose books include How to Talk to a Liberal (If You Must), is a frequent guest on Real Time with Bill Maher, offering a counter to the host on everything from welfare reform to immigration. Elisabeth Hasselbeck, first on The View and now on Fox &amp; Friends, has also frequently called out comedians — most notably her former View co-hosts Rosie O'Donnell and Whoopi Goldberg — while promoting her own largely conservative views on subjects. As President Barack Obama found out, the conservative pundits don’t want politicians in on the joke either. When the President appeared on Zach Galifianakis' web series Between Two Ferns, O'Reilly and others went after what the felt was Obama's flippant treatment of a serious issue (healthcare reform). Of course, when O'Reilly said that "Abe Lincoln wouldn't have done it" it led to a series of jokes.
The Comedians
Really, the comedians largely have it easy. Making fun of politicians is a time honored tradition, and an American birthright. From newspaper cartoonists to Will Rogers to Saturday Night Live, there's always been someone taking shots at the powers-that-be. The difference is that more and more, comedians are offering an actual opinion on their beliefs beyond just the jokes, something that Maher on Politically Incorrect and one of his HBO predecessors Dennis Miller (now a conservative radio host) helped make fashionable. O'Donnell and Janeane Garofalo have long been outspoken on their views on gun control, women's rights, and a variety of other issues. While Stewart, Colbert, John Oliver and the rest of the Daily Show group point out hypocrisy in both political parties — similar to what SNL has done for nearly 40 years — they make little effort to conceal their glee at puncturing holes in the façades of conservative political figures like Michele Bachmann, Ted Cruz, Paul Ryan and Rick Santorum. In a recent commentary on The Daily Beast, comedian Dean Obeidallah opined that conservatives "fear comedy because they aren't good at it."
Not everyone is thrilled with the political influence that comedians like Stewart and Colbert have come to wield. "The problem becomes, are they the principle source of information for the country? Do they begin to move in and occupy the place that Walter Cronkite occupied or Edward R. Murrow occupied?," media analyst Marvin Kalb said. "The unfortunate answer now is 'Yes,' they are occupying that space. The danger there is that people begin to take it too seriously and they begin to think that the joke is the reality."
Whether it's good or bad, there's little doubt that potshots from both sides, pundits and comedians, will continue unabated for the foreseeable future. Hopefully, we know enough as a society not to take either side too seriously… whether they're joking or not.
Follow @Hollywood_com
//
Follow @LifeAsSitcom
//

Acting icon Robert De Niro and crooner Michael Buble were honoured for their philanthropic efforts at Muhammad Ali's Celebrity Fight Night on Saturday (12Apr14). The 20th annual event attracted stars from movies, music and sports to the Phoenix, Arizona gala, which raises funds in support of the legendary boxer's fight to find a cure for Parkinson's disease.
The Raging Bull star was given the night's big prize, the 2014 Muhammad Ali Celebrity Fight Night Award, which was handed to De Niro by his Analyze This co-star Billy Crystal.
Singer Buble was also presented with the Muhammad Ali Humanitarian Award by country artist Reba McEntire, who served as the host for the evening.
Ali himself was not able to attend his event due to a stomach bug, but other celebrities, including Sex and the City's John Corbett and politician Robert Kennedy, Jr., were on hand to support the cause.
Country music siblings The Band Perry took the stage to entertain attendees, while Buble, McEntire and Kenny Rogers also performed.
A live auction was also held during the event, where a VIP treatment package at the premiere of The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 1 sold for $15,000 (£8,967), while two lucky bidders each paid $500,000 (£298,918) to have dinner with McEntire in her home. But the biggest draw of the night was a dinner with De Niro, Crystal and former New York Yankees general manager Joe Torre, which went for $1 million (£597,836).
Over $8 million (£4.8 million) was raised during the event, boosting the total raised in the 20 years of Celebrity Fight Night to $95 million (£56.8 million). Funds will benefit the Muhammad Ali Parkinson Center and Medical Center's Barrow Neurological Institute in Phoenix, as well as other charities.

AMC
AMC's new period drama, Turn, hopes to show that spies were cool, even in the 18th Century. While that's probably true, the show needs to quickly pick up the pace if it wants to keep its modern audience engaged.
Based in part on Alexander Rose's best-seller, Washington's Spies: The Story of America's First Spy Ring, the show stars Jamie Bell, a Long Island farmer named Abe Woodhull, who is caught between his father (Kevin McNally) who is loyal to the crown, and his childhood friends Ben Tallmedge and Caleb Brewster (Seth Numrich and Daniel Henshall, respectively), Continental Army regulars who are trying to recruit Abe as an informant in British occupied New York during the summer of 1778.
What's more, Abe is married to Mary (Meegan Warner) and has a young son, but his heart truly belongs to local tavern-keeper Anna Strong (Heather Lind), who broke off their engagement over his family's loyalist beliefs.
The pilot does a decent job of setting everything up, with McNally's Quaker judge explaining his son's romantic backstory as he partners with the local British commanding officer, Major Hewitt (Burn Gorman) to keep Abe out of the gallows after he stops a British officer from killing Anna's husband. The fact that the husband is arrested and shipped off anyway provides the impetus for Abe and Anna to renew a closer relationship, as well as for her to assist with the espionage efforts.
The show is beautifully shot and does a terrific job of bringing home the horrors of a war fought up close, as blood flows freely and dead bodies litter every field. The producers have done as good a job as you possibly can in recreating the look and feel of the Revolutionary War era. They also, thankfully, don't spend too much time explaining where we are in terms of historical context, figuring that if viewers don't already know what was happening in 1778 they can go on their website and look it up (something that AMC actively promoted during commercials).
Bell, barely recognizable from his Billy Elliott days, is fine as Abe, even if he did come across as a little too anxious to make sure that we understand the character's internal conflict. The first episode bounced him around so much as we learned where we were in Abe's story that it was hard to get a true read on him. In particular, with the British officers being played as either foppish (Gorman) or brutal (Samuel Roukin's menacing Captain Simcoe) it's hard to understand why Abe's father is on their side. Since this is a series instead of a movie, it would be helpful to explore why they were loyalists in the first place. Lind as Anna, though, is a keeper. Displaying all of the inherent tension of a woman who is forced to be nice to the resident British Army — especially the lecherous Simcoe — when she's a staunch supporter of independence, Lind helped establish the conflict with her body language better than anything in the script.
The stage is set for plenty of drama, as besides being in love with a woman who isn't his wife, Abe's father more or less disowns him and his buddies Tallmedge and Brewster knowingly betray his trust for the greater good. There's also a subplot involving a band of Scottish mercenaries led by Angus MacFadyen's Robert Rogers that, while only briefly added to the mix in the first episode, hints at the cat-and-mouse game to come.
It's obviously limited by the actual history behind the story — let's face it, we all know what the war's outcome will be — but that doesn't mean that the story can't come quicker. The show is done well enough that it will appease the target audience, like fans of the HBO's miniseries John Adams, but for everyone else there probably needs to be more hooks that propel the story and keep viewers interested in what comes next. Otherwise, the audience might just turn away.
Follow @Hollywood_com
//
Follow @LifeAsSitcom
//

DreamWorks
For the bulk of every Rocky and Bullwinkle episode, moose and squirrel would engage in high concept escapades that satirized geopolitics, contemporary cinema, and the very fabrics of the human condition. With all of that to work with, there's no excuse for why the pair and their Soviet nemeses haven't gotten a decent movie adaptation. But the ingenious Mr. Peabody and his faithful boy Sherman are another story, intercut between Rocky and Bullwinkle segments to teach kids brief history lessons and toss in a nearly lethal dose of puns. Their stories and relationship were much simpler, which means that bringing their shtick to the big screen would entail a lot more invention — always risky when you're dealing with precious material.
For the most part, Mr. Peabody &amp; Sherman handles the regeneration of its heroes aptly, allowing for emotionally substance in their unique father-son relationship and all the difficulties inherent therein. The story is no subtle metaphor for the difficulties surrounding gay adoption, with society decreeing that a dog, no matter how hyper-intelligent, cannot be a suitable father. The central plot has Peabody hosting a party for a disapproving child services agent and the parents of a young girl with whom 7-year-old Sherman had a schoolyard spat, all in order to prove himself a suitable dad. Of course, the WABAC comes into play when the tots take it for a spin, forcing Peabody to rush to their rescue.
Getting down to personals, we also see the left brain-heavy Peabody struggle with being father Sherman deserves. The bulk of the emotional marks are hit as we learn just how much Peabody cares for Sherman, and just how hard it has been to accept that his only family is growing up and changing.
DreamWorks
But more successful than the new is the film's handling of the old — the material that Peabody and Sherman purists will adore. They travel back in time via the WABAC Machine to Ancient Egypt, the Renaissance, and the Trojan War, and 18th Century France, explaining the cultural backdrop and historical significance of the settings and characters they happen upon, all with that irreverent (but no longer racist) flare that the old cartoons enjoyed. And oh... the puns.
Mr. Peabody &amp; Sherman is a f**king treasure trove of some of the most amazingly bad puns in recent cinema. This effort alone will leave you in awe.
The film does unravel in its final act, bringing the science-fiction of time travel a little too close to the forefront and dropping the ball on a good deal of its emotional groundwork. What seemed to be substantial building blocks do not pay off in the way we might, as scholars of animated family cinema, have anticipated, leaving the movie with an unfinished feeling.
But all in all, it's a bright, compassionate, reasonably educational, and occasionally funny if not altogether worthy tribute to an old favorite. And since we don't have our own WABAC machine to return to a time of regularly scheduled Peabody and Sherman cartoons, this will do okay for now.
If nothing else, it's worth your time for the puns.
3/5
Follow @Michael Arbeiter
//
| Follow @Hollywood_com
//

Dallas Buyers Club and Gravity were the toast of the 2014 Oscars on Sunday (02Mar14), but it was 12 Years A Slave which was named Best Picture on Hollywood's biggest night. The Steve McQueen slave drama was a triple threat, also scoring Best Supporting Actress for Lupita Nyong'o and Best Adapted Screenplay for John Ridley.
AIDS drama Dallas Buyers Club served up a double win in the male acting categories with Matthew McConaughey earning his first Oscar for Best Actor and Jared Leto claiming Best Supporting Actor, while Cate Blanchett took home the Best Actress title for her star turn in Woody Allen's Blue Jasmine.
However, it was Gravity which scored the most wins of the night with seven, including Best Director for Alfonso Cuaron and a string of technical awards.
The 86th annual ceremony was presented by Ellen DeGeneres and she opened the prestigious event by joking about the heavy rain which has lashed the usually-sunny state of California in the past few days, and poking fun at Jennifer Lawrence for her clumsy nature after she stumbled and fell to her knees on the red carpet as she arrived at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood - a year after she tripped up the stairs on the way to pick up her 2013 Best Actress Oscar.
Each of the nominations for Best Original Song were performed, but it was Frozen star Idina Menzel's rendition of Let It Go which earned husband and wife songwriting team Robert Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez the award.
Pop star Pink helped to celebrate the 75th anniversary of The Wizard of Oz by belting out Somewhere Over the Rainbow in front of Judy Garland's children Liza Minnelli, Lorna Luft and Joey Luft, who were among the guests in the audience, and Bette Midler made her performance debut at the awards by singing Wind Beneath My Wings following the annual In Memoriam segment, which featured tributes to the likes of James Gandolfini, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Karen Black, Paul Walker, Annette Funicello, Peter O'Toole, Richard Griffiths, Sid Caesar, Shirley Temple Black, Harold Ramis, film critic Roger Ebert and former Academy president Tom Sherak.
The full list of winners at the 2014 Oscars is:
Best Motion Picture of the Year:
12 Years A Slave
Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role:
Matthew McConaughey, Dallas Buyers Club
Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role:
Cate Blanchett, Blue Jasmine
Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role:
Jared Leto, Dallas Buyers Club
Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role:
Lupita Nyong'o, 12 Years A Slave
Best Achievement in Directing:
Alfonso Cuaron, Gravity
Best Writing, Original Screenplay:
Spike Jonze, Her
Best Writing, Adapted Screenplay:
John Ridley, 12 Years A Slave
Best Animated Feature Film:
Frozen - Chris Buck, Jennifer Lee & Peter Del Vecho
Best Foreign Language Film of the Year:
The Great Beauty (Italy)
Best Achievement in Cinematography:
Gravity - Emmanuel Lubezki
Best Achievement in Film Editing:
Gravity - Alfonso Cuaron & Mark Sanger
Best Achievement in Production Design:
The Great Gatsby - Catherine Martin & Beverley Dunn
Best Achievement in Costume Design:
The Great Gatsby - Catherine Martin
Best Achievement in Makeup and Hairstyling:
Dallas Buyers Club - Adruitha Lee & Robin Mathews
Best Achievement in Music Written for Motion Pictures, Original Score:
Gravity - Steven Price
Best Achievement in Music Written for Motion Pictures, Original Song:
Let It Go from Frozen - Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez
Best Achievement in Sound Mixing:
Gravity - Skip Lievsay, Niv Adiri, Christopher Benstead & Chris Munro
Best Achievement in Sound Editing:
Gravity - Glenn Freemantle
Best Achievement in Visual Effects:
Gravity - Timothy Webber, Chris Lawrence, David Shirk & Neil Corbould
Best Documentary, Feature:
Twenty Feet From Stardom - Morgan Neville, Gil Friesen & Caitrin Rogers
Best Documentary, Short Subject:
The Lady in Number 6: Music Saved My Life
Best Short Film, Animated:
Mr Hublot - Laurent Witz & Alexandre Espigares
Best Short Film, Live Action:
Helium - Anders Walter & Kim Magnusson
Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award:
Angelina Jolie.

Marvel/Jimmy Kimmel Live/YouTube
A wave of geek pride swept popular culture sometime in the latter half of the past decade — regrettably, long after many of us really needed it (damn those high school years). We've seen the phenomenon unfold in the form of Lucasfilm buzz, Star Trek reboots, and (most notably) the Marvel Universe on the big screen. Comic book devotees were not only seeing their favorite stories and characters take faithful shape in Disney's behemoth film franchise, but were sharing this love, for the first time, with everyone else. The mainstream.
As a subtle form of counterculture against an existing blockbuster fare so devoid of brains and heart that it bordered on nihilism, Hollywood grabbed for the passion that so many comic fans had been thriving on just below the scope of public awareness. Studios stumbled upon the pure gold that had been funding comic fandom for years, enlisting not those who might dilute the nerd lexicon with accessibility, but bona fide fluent-speakers to translate the language to the big screen: Joss Whedon, Matthew Vaughn, Joe Johnston, and the like. And the result wasn't an alienation of the American majority, but its integration with the flavorful subculture that had for so long offered shelter to those otherwise homeless. At last, being one of these long ostracized few was the key to popular authority. Encyclopedic knowledge about S.H.I.E.L.D., Asgard, and the Extremis virus became a bejewled anchor that'd dock you a coveted spot in any party conversation. Being a geek — historied, analytical, and didactic about these precious worlds — was finally in. So that would make it the perfect time to launch one of the Marvel Comics world's more obscure (at least compared to Iron Man) properties, Guardians of the Galaxy.
A film version of the Dan Abnett/Andy Lanning creation was first mentioned as a possibility back in 2010, ascending to the altogether surprising, exciting, and worrisome green light platform two years later, breaking public via an announcement at 2012's San Diego Comic-Con. We had only a few months prior seen The Avengers sock the American people with a regime of jingoistic solidarity that you'd ordinarily need a national tragedy to instill, but apprehensions remained: could Marvel Studios — yes, even that very Marvel Studios — get geeky enough for this wacko publication? But we might not have been asking the right question. A year and a half later, we have our first authentic taste of what the suits at Disney and their latest on-lot artisan James Gunn are offering with Guardians of the Galaxy. The trailer came forth via the good graces of Tuesday night's Jimmy Kimmel Live! (on the Mouse-handled network ABC), hitting the Internet moments later and eliciting every conceivable response from the Twittersphere: looks great, looks dumb, looks fun, looks weird, looks like magic, looks like trash, looks too... too...
"Geeky" wouldn't be the right word — far from it — though no one could claim that this seemed like your average blockbuster. Its hero, a sitcom star with a new vault-load of Lego Movie money (Chris Pratt), humorously laments the meager scale of his reputation and doles out the bird without reservation. Its second-in-commands are a cool-handed assassin (Zoe Saldana) and a shirtless bulge on a perpetual revenge quest (Dave Bautista). And then there's a raccoon and a tree (the voices of Bradley Cooper and Vin Diesel, respectively). A gallery of rejects, introduced by John C. Reilly and a disapproving Peter Serafinowicz all in perfect tempo with an action montage and the musical stylings of Blue Swede. It's all pretty f**king gosh darn ridiculous, as such bound to ordain contesters: the vein-deep geeks so rigidly affixed to the spirited but sincere masterworks of Stan Lee, the Avengers franchise fans confused by the apparent shift in the comic book movie machine's gears. But just as Phase I came about as an act of defiance to the stoic norm, Guardians seems to be speaking on behalf of its own breed of second-class citizen. A legion from the social culture underbelly with even less claim to fertile territory than the geeks had. This is the beginning of a new wave for dork culture.
Marvel/Jimmy Kimmel Live/YouTube
Call it semantics, but you'll just be proving how estranged you are from each locale (although despite what the message boards tell you, there's no shame in not being any kind of nerd). Where the geeks are proud members of a long oppressed and unappreciated kingdom, dorks are more "man without a country" types. Perhaps more accurately identified as schmoes, goons, oddballs, outcasts, dinks, freaks, or (if you want to stick with the classics) weirdos, those in the dork variety don't boast the benefits of a grounded underworld, nor a bible to which they might adhere. The dorks — proverbial loners — have only themselves. Their intellect, their sense of humor. Where many geeks stray to science fiction and fantasy, dorks stray to comedy, a medium as readily conducive to inward speculation and innovation as the comic book scene's is to outward. As such, with action and adventure laying claim to the most popular of the cinematic world's genres (and no traditionally unified voice, by nature), it's been hard for the dorks to really get their blockbuster out there. But Guardians of the Galaxy looks like it, in a number of ways.
First, this is a movie about dorks, not geeks. Although The Avengers saw a spat of dissimilar heroes coming together for the greater good, that central conceit is what identifies them as members of the geek class. Separately or together, they're all part of something larger than themselves: justice. An element that is often shunned and cast away by the powers that be, but that holds strong and electric beneath the surface until inevitably erupting with righteous power. In Guardians, we have a collection of criminals. Vandals, renegades, murderers. People (and aliens, and rodents, and trees) whose only unifying quality seems to be strength in numbers, or maybe just a distaste for the very idea of authority. That doesn't mean we won't root for 'em, but you can bet it won't be the same old band-of-brothers story that we saw back in May '12.
On the same token, not a one of them seems to belong anywhere. Again, we compare with the Avengers crew: Steve Rogers reigned supreme in the WWII-era American Army, Tony Stark was the Steve Jobs of his own electronics industry, Thor staked claim to a literal throne back in Asgard. But look at the Guardians: Drax the Destroyer (Bautista) lost his planet and family, Gamora (Saldana) abandons her evil upbringing in favor of an existential (albeit still quite violent) journey, nobody's heard of Peter "Star-Lord" Quill (Pratt), and... again, do we even have to say anything about the raccoon and the tree? As Serafinowicz harumphs in the trailer, this team doesn't come off as your motley band of underdog heroes. They look like "a bunch of a-holes." (Hey, maybe that's the new subculture that Guardians is aiming for.)
Marvel/Jimmy Kimmel Live/YouTube
Second, this is a movie for dorks. Not only is it championing the agenda of these walking, shooting, and tree-ing bags of nonsense, it's doing so with the attitude that a dork approaches his or her every thought with. Sure, The Avengers was funny — and irreverent, no doubt — but it was sincere. Genuine all the way through in everything it shepherded from source to script to screen. Guardians, as much as we can tell so far, is an explosion in goofiness. It introduces its central hero with a joke — not only at his expense, but at that of the movie itself. It undermines its own severity over and over, with cursing intergalactic agents, an eruption of '70s pop music, and a destruction of all the principles on which the ideas of traditional heroism are founded. Logically speaking, it doesn't seem like we're supposed to root for or believe in these dinguses. They don't have the inherent nobility of your geek heroes — the moral fiber that stems from a grounding in worlds of tribalistic fantasy. These guys are free agents, and the movie looks like it is embracing that in its delivery of character, story, ambiance, and comedy. And that last one is the most important indicator here. Geek culture is riddled with fun, but takes its staples very seriously. There's no room for that when you're talking about dorks.
So why now? Why is a dork movement on the rise as a counter to the very uprising that dissipated mainstream nihilism? Really, its a breakdown of subcultures altogether... or a step toward this notion. Geek culture came about to usher in a "different" group. Movies had long spoken to a specific populace, ignoring the creative, deserving, eager collections of comic book aficionados. Geek culture gave rise to the Second World. But dork culture is the Third World, or maybe no World at all. The dork wave is about true individualism. No adherence to any cultural law above survivalism. Where the geeks spent decades building speakeasy churches in which to decree their gods and psalms sanct — quietly, lest the ruling classes catch wind of this heresy — the dorks have been working corners for a bite to eat, not buying into the political reign or to the defiant uprisings. Not worrying about (or successfully abetting the demands of) what demanded of either the mainstream or the geeky, just looking for the things that made them laugh, feel, and think.
They haven't been looking for a band with which to take up — as if they'd be welcome into one if they had — reveling instead in inimitability... not without a healthy sum of self-loathing, mind you (again, damn those high school years). Throughout, they knew, or hoped, that they had something figured out. That someday, past the downfall of the mainstream, past the uprise of geek culture, they'd get to tell their story on the biggest screens imaginable. And it all starts here. Crank the ooga chakas.
Follow @Michael Arbeiter
| Follow @Hollywood_com